Secrets, romance and sizes: The life and thoughts of Edith Head

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“Good clothes,” said Edith Head, “are not a matter of luck." The California-born Head ushered in what some consider a golden age of costume design, dressing everyone from Faye Dunaway and Tippi Hedren to Steve Martin, but she was just as famous for her acerbic wit.

Head won eight Oscars from a total of 35 Academy Award nominations, more than any other woman to date.

On Oct. 28, playwright and actress Susan Claassen came to Los Angeles’ Odyssey Theatre with her one-woman show, “A Conversation with Edith Head.” In the play, Claassen simulates an interview by posing as the late costume mogul, answering questions submitted by the audience each night.

Claassen told KPCC’s Patt Morrison Tuesday that she feels privileged to keep Head’s legacy alive – a woman, Claassen says, who established herself as a great designer because of her versatility. Head’s repertoire ran the gamut, from the glamorous gowns in Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” to period pieces in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.”

“She knew her costumes would only be as good as comfortable as the actor was wearing them. And so it was never about the costume, it always had to further the story,” Claassen said.

Paddy Calistro, Claassen’s co-writer and author of Head’s posthumous autobiography, said that Head understood how to make actors and actresses feel like movie stars and accentuated their finer points.

“Edith was the ultimate executive, and she knew how to deal with directors, she knew how to deal with stars. She was a manager even more than a designer,” Calistro said. “She knew how to please people, and that allowed her to work her way up the ranks in Hollywood.”

Claassen agreed.

“She said her motto was Bing Crosby’s theme song, [Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive]: ‘You have to accentuate the positive and camouflage the negative.’”

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Patt Morrison is a live two-hour public affairs show. The program is known for its innovative discussions of local politics and culture, and for its presentation of national and world news as it affects Southern California.